Resume materials

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AEI-3 A System for Managing Administrative
Knowledge
Chandra S. Amaravadi Dept. of IMDS College of
Business Technology Western Illinois University
Paper presented at the Illinois Regional Workshop
on Information Systems and Technology March 19,
2004 Springfield, IL
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OUTLINE OF THIS PRESENTATION

• Introduction to KM
• KM Concept
• Brief review of research
• Research problem
• Nature of administrative knowledge
• AEI3 - A method to manage knowledge
• AEI3 The system

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INTRODUCTION
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KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT..
The explicit management of organizational
knowledge, including tools and processes to
create, store, access and disseminate
organizational knowledge. Adapted from Pearlson
01
KM tools include groupware, discussion groups etc.
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TYPES OF KNOWLEDGE
Adapted from Keri Pearlson, Managing Using
Information Systems, 2001
EXPLICIT KNOWLEDGE
TACIT KNOWLEDGE

• Procedures in a
• manual

• Mechanisms to evaluate a
• prospective buyer

• Reports and financial
• statements

• Creating a price structure
• that will maximize profits

• Relevant news reports articles

• Style preferences of
• customers

• Information from past
• projects

• Estimating the time to
• complete a project

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KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT PROCESSES
Identify
Generate
Define Strategy
KNOWLEDGE
Capture/Codify
Use/Measure
Transfer/Absorb
From Keri Pearlson, Managing Using
Information Systems, 2001
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PREVIOUS WORK

• Focus on case studies
• Martiny 98, Mann et al. 97, Liao et al.
  04
• Focus on organizational processes
• Vail 99, Davenport et al. 96, Lank 97,
  Hackbarth
• Grover 99, Martiny 98
• Measurement
• Roos Roos 97

Very little focus on operational knowledge, Very
little focus on organization of knowledge
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PREVIOUS WORK..
APPROACHES TO EXPLICIT KNOWLEDGE
DOCUMENT PERSPECTIVE

• RD documents -- Mann et al. 97
• Contacts database -- Retallick Sanchez 98

KNOWLEDGE ENGINEERING PERSPECTIVE

• Maintenance manuals -- Rosner et. al 98
• Epidemiological research -- Crofts et. al 99

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THE RESEARCH PROBLEM
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THE PROBLEM

• Technical management of professional/managerial
• knowledge unwieldy
• Focus on administrative knowledge
• -- operational significance

Identify a generalized, large scale knowledge
architecture to store and retrieve administrative
knowledge Develop a system to manage the
knowledge
AEI-3
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THE PROBLEM..
What is administrative knowledge how do we
store and retrieve it?
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ADMINISTRATIVE KNOWLEDGE
Administrative Knowledge Knowledge utilized in
carrying out support operations in an
organization
-- adapted from Garvin 97
(we will also refer to it as office knowledge)
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EXAMPLES OF OFFICE KNOWLEDGE
1. Every project has a BDM and a PM. 2. BSS
cannot own fixed assets. 3. The Van leaves BSS at
1100 am and goes to Elnet. 4. A project can be
initiated by a CEO or by a PM. 5. Induction
program is a two day training program for
fresh recruits. 6. Jeff Ptomain from Manugistics
will be visiting BSS from 23rd to 26th
May. 7. BSS is in the process of getting Paradigm
Plus. 8. Qualify is an in-house tool to support
ISO-9000.
Note BSS stands for Baroda Software Services
(name disguised)
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NATURE OF OFFICE KNOWLEDGE

• Concepts
• Relationships among concepts
• Elaborations on concepts
• Assertions concerning people, places events etc.
• Rules/policies

Semantic Networks
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DESIGN OBJECTIVES

• Manage administrative knowledge
• Extensive dialog not required
• Knowledge stored in complete form
• Intractable problems not addressed
• Open-ended, extensible maintainable
• Robustly handle large volumes

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AEI-3
(AGENT, ENTITY, INFORMATION)
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THE SOLUTION AEI3

• Design a knowledge exchange
• User is a participant in the system
• User contributes knowledge
• Other users query system
• The system acts as a knowledge server
• Embedded in an OIS

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AEI-3 CHARTER
1. Will function as a knowledge exchange 2.
Scope will be defined by use 3. Efficiency
independent of volume 4. Ubiquitously
accessible facilities 5. Participants will be
producers and consumers 6. Transaction cost
must be minimal 7. Transactions must be in raw
form 8. Accept complete transactions when
possible 9. Facilities must be simple, flexible
and robust 10. Implemented with current
technologies
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AEI-3 ARCHITECTURE
Word Processing
Spread- sheets
Brow- sers
Application
Interface
AEI-3
Operating Environment
KB Server
Manual Server
Hard disk repository
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FURTHER COMMENTS AEI-3

• AEI-3 is a subset of FGOIS (also a KM system)
• Thought of as extension of system help
  facilities
• Includes domain help
• A parallel idea to KM

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AEI3 A Method to Manage Administrative
Knowledge
AEI3 represents a continuing effort to deal
with the office Knowledge representation problem
and stands for Agent, Entity, Information
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THE AEI-3 SCHEME

• Two types of nodes class instance
• Two types of links D links and S links
• No other restrictions on node link types
• Can easily add new classes assertions
• Relative assertions handled separately

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THE AEI-3 SCHEME..
INSTRUCTOR
Sis_a
DTeaches
Rangarajan
C
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THE AEI-3 SCHEME..
INSTRUCTOR
MONTH
Sis_a
Sis_a
DAvailable
Rangarajan
August
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THE AEI-3 SCHEME..
Sis_a
ALLISON
Sis_a
DTeaches
C
RANGARAJAN
Sis_a
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THE AEI-3 SCHEME..
SOFTWARE
PROJECT
Sis_a
Sis_a
DOrdered
IDG Group
Paradigm Plus
DOrdered
March 2003
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THE AEI-3 SCHEME..
Dinitiated
Dinitiated
Sis_a
Sis_a
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THE AEI-3 SCHEME..
HANDLING ADDITIONAL ASSERTIONS
Sis_a
Davailability
MARCH 5TH
RANGARAJAN
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EVALUATION OF AEI3
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AEI-3
(AEI-3 The System)
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ABOUT THE SYSTEM

• Roughly 200 knowledge items
• Each item is stored as a predicate

Predicate Link(link label, link type, from node,
to node)   Example1 link(is_a, s, company,
bss) Example2 link(job, d, allison, travel
arrangements) Example3 link(is_a, s, software
tool, paradigm plus) Example4
link(ordered_by, d, paradigm plus, IDG
group) Example5 link(is_a, s, project, IDG
group)
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ABOUT THE SYSTEM..

• Programmed to answer standard query patterns

Example pattern1 Who is responsible for X
where X is a job function. Example pattern2
Who does X? where X is a job function. Example
pattern3 What is X? where X is an inanimate
object (company). Example pattern4 What do
you know about X? where X could be any
object. Example pattern5 How many X does Y
have? where X and Y are objects.  
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ABOUT THE SYSTEM..

• Example clause is shown below

search_net(what, do, you, know, about, X, Result)
- find all
nodes connected to X with d links. findall(To_no
des, link(_,_,d,X, To_nodes), Child_nodes),
find list of link labels and format
for output

findall(D_links,
link(D_links,_,d,X,_), D_list),
list_to_string(X, Child_nodes,
D_list, "", Return_str1),
find nodes connected to X with s links,
format for output findall(Nodes_Class,
link(_,_,s, Nodes_Class, X), Parent_nodes),
get_prep_list(P_list),

list_to_string(X, Parent_nodes, P_list, "",
Return_str2),
concat(Return_str2, Return_str1, Result).
 
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AN EXAMPLE QUERY..
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AN EXAMPLE RESPONSE..
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SELECTED REFERENCES
Amaravadi, C. Research issues in Office
Information Systems paper presented at IFIP W.G.
8.4., 1998 Brachman, R. J., On the
epistemological status of semantic nets in
Associative Networks by Findler N. (ed.), pp.
3-50, 1979. Cordingley, E., Intermediate
knowledge representation for extended office
systems, Proceedings of the IFIP,
Toronto, August 17-19th, 1987, North Holland pp
61-69. Garvin, D. The processes of organization
and management, Sloan Management Review, 39(4),
1997, pp 33-50. Woods, W.A., Whats in a link?
Foundations of Semantic Networks, Readings in
Knowledge Representation, 1985.